Michael Herce, M.D. ’05, M.P.H.

What frustrates me most is ... (I can’t pick just one): gross inequality in access to health care; the [mistaken] idea that all Americans have access to health care (“After all, you just go to an emergency room,” as former President George W. Bush famously stated); the de facto rationing that occurs among the insured and underinsured so insurance companies can maintain steep profits; “cost-cutting measures” that are not based on sound biomedical evidence; defensive medicine fueled by unchecked litigation; the complete lack of attention to preventive health care; and the fact that a primary care doctor working her tail off to provide quality, cost-saving care earns the smallest salary in medicine.

I want health reform that doesn’t placate big pharma and the insurance industry, that is single-payer, universal, equitable, and focuses on health over health care.